Tapestry
by Anonymous033
Summary: Sequel to 'Lack' and 'Puzzle Pieces'. A series of one-shots on Tony and Ziva's life together after their decision to make things long-term. Completed multi-chapter fic.
1. Commitment

**Okay ... hi! So. I decided to create a sequel to "Lack" and "Puzzle Pieces". Of course I did, haha. (Spoilers to those fics, obviously.)**

**Anyway, this story will be a series of one-shots on their life after their decision to make things long-term. It will most likely jump back and forth through time because I haven't yet decided which parts of their relationship I'm going to write about, but if the need arises, I will make a timeline and put it here ... lol. Also, because I'm an Angst fanatic, this will likely contain a lot of angst. And sappiness. You have been warned.**

**Yup, I think that's all that needs to be said. Hope you like the series :)**

**Note: Okay, to be honest, I'm rather _green _when it comes to relationship-y stuff (and yes, I realize the irony of my writing Tiva), so if I make anything seem unrealistic, could you please let me down gently? Please. My poor little heart thanks you D:**

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><p><strong>Summary: "Zi, how can I be sure of where we're going with this?" When Tony calls Ziva one night while freaking out, Ziva decides to help him through his fears.<strong>

**Disclaimer: I just received (very bad) news on Ray D: now I _really _wish I owned NCIS. A single order, "Be gone with you!" and we would not have to worry about his return. Alas, I own not. :(**

**Spoilers: No specific canon spoilers, but this story is built on "Lack" and "Puzzle Pieces". It may not make sense if you haven't read those two stories.**

**Dedication: To Alice (alidiabin), who is, simply put, AWESOME_._**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

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><p><strong>Commitment<strong>

Her cell phone rang at the exact moment that she checked the clock on her wall for the third time, and she jumped and hurriedly stretched across to the coffee table to pick the device up.

"Tony. Is Gibbs still keeping you?" she asked him without preamble; Tony had been sleeping overnight at her place for almost two months now, and she'd grown rather too accustomed to having him in her apartment after work hours. If she were the type to admit things, she'd have to say that she missed him at the moment.

"Hey, Zi," he answered, and his voice sounded like warm honey against her ear, "no. I got out about a half hour ago. But … I called to let you know I might – I might be going back to my place tonight."

Her heart sank a little. "Is there something you need to do by yourself?" she asked hesitantly, because _why _might sound a bit whiny and demanding.

"Well…" He sighed and continued with what sounded like frustration. "Not exactly. I don't know how to tell you this, but I may be freaking out a bit, and…"

"Where are you?" she asked softly when he didn't finish his sentence, and he breathed out again.

"Kinda just wandering along the Potomac."

"I will go look for you."

"No. I mean … Zi, I'm not exactly a pretty picture when I freak out."

"What are you freaking out about?"

"… Us," he admitted.

She blinked, since she couldn't remember anything that had happened lately between them which would warrant freaking out, but didn't voice her thought. "Then we can freak out together, yes?"

"Yeah," he replied after a beat, in a surprised tone which suggested he hadn't expected her to say that.

"It's okay," she said as reassuringly as she could. "I will be with you soon. You are near the Navy Yard, yes?"

Two seconds passed before he answered in the affirmative and _thanked _her, and he actually sounded stunned by then. She smiled, ordered him to stay where he was and wait for her, and told him before hanging up that she loved him.

She had the foresight to grab both their thicker coats before heading out the door.

xoxo

It took her twenty minutes to find him, and when she did her foresight proved to be accurate, because he was shivering and looking a little blue by then. She struggled to help him put his coat on and let him hold her as they walked back to the car, so that he would be warmer.

The car heater on 'High', she turned to him. "Your place or mine?"

He closed his eyes and seemed to come to a decision about something she wasn't privy to. "Yours."

They drove in silence for a while before he spoke up without looking at her. "You came for me."

She shot him a quizzical look out of the corner of her eye, but failed to come up with an intelligent response to that statement.

"Well, you know, people don't usually want to talk to me when I start getting all panicky," he elaborated. "Especially if my panic involves them. They tell me to go take a walk and clear my head, get my thoughts straight, stuff like that. Not a lot of people can handle … good ole me."

Ignoring the feeling that he'd changed his sentence at the last minute, she risked leaning over and pressing a very quick kiss to his cheek. He yelped and told her to watch the road; she laughed. "I _am _watching the road. And you are mine to 'handle' now – I have my own way of doing that."

He cast her a slight smile. "I like it."

The rest of the car ride was spent in peaceful quiet.

xoxo

She could still sense his reluctance to tell her when they got home why he'd been freaking out, so she left him to his shower while she prepared for bed. Propped up against her pillow and armed with a good book, she was already beginning to nod off when he finally climbed into his side and held out his arms to let her curl up in his embrace like she'd acquired the habit of doing. She laid her book aside and made herself comfortable, nuzzling her nose into his neck.

He pressed a gentle kiss into her hair, and his arms tightened almost desperately against her. "Zi, how can I be sure of where we're going with this?"

She blinked her sleepiness away and tried to concentrate. "I thought we agreed it's long-term."

"I know. But I – I kinda wanna take things further, y'know; it's just that I keep…"

"Freaking out," she filled in the blanks.

"Yeah," he confessed morosely.

She brought up a hand to toy with his chest hair. "Take things further, how?" she questioned lightly, hoping she could keep things playful enough to take off his nervous edge.

He watched her for a while. "I've been kinda wanting to ask you if you … might want to … move in together."

Her hand froze in its motion because she hadn't been expecting that, and his body twitched. She glanced at him to see apprehension seeping into his eyes, so she pressed a kiss to his collarbone. "'Kind of wanting,' as in you are not really sure if you want to ask?"

"No, I'm sure. I really want it. It's just…" He shut his eyes, and his voice suddenly became so small that she almost had to strain her ears to hear it. "I keep seeing you walk out the door in the end."

She looked at him, all vulnerable and terrified by the thought of her leaving, and her heart broke for him. She slipped an arm around his waist and snuggled as close as she could. "Tony, in case you haven't noticed, you've been staying in my apartment for weeks now. I think I like having you around twenty-four seven."

He exhaled in a rush. "Is that a 'yes'?"

"That is a 'yes'," she confirmed. "And it is also a promise."

"To what?" he asked, finally opening his eyes and meeting hers again.

She paused and rearranged the words in her head. "I can't promise that we will definitely work out." He tensed, and she tightened her hold. "_But. _I can promise to give you my all. I want this to work out as much as you do, Tony. If commitment is what you want, then you have it. You've always had it. I'm not going to … 'up and leave' you, hmm?"

"Yeah." He swallowed a few times. "But this is _now_. You might … decide one day that the leaving is worth more than the staying."

She frowned as she thought about how to answer him, and slowly rubbed his side in the way that she'd learnt would calm him down. "Do you remember what happened the first time we fought? As a couple, I mean."

"You went to Gibbs's place."

"Yes. But more than that, I told you where I was going. And then I called from Gibbs's to let you know I'd be back later – even if I said it very rudely. I did come back. You were asleep by then, but I did go to bed here, by your side. Do you remember?"

He nodded. "It's not exactly a forgettable fight."

She sighed and gave him another kiss. "It's not about the fight, Tony. It's not even about the flowers and sunshine and everything nice. They are all important, but you know what? _This _is commitment. Calling you even when I'm mad, so that you won't have to worry. Returning to your side at the end of every day because even if there are times when I don't particularly like you, I want things with you to work in the long run. Not letting you freak out on your own because I am one-half of this relationship, and I'm in it for the good and the bad.

"I wanted so much to break things off with you after that first fight," she continued, and he tensed again. "Because I was angry. But I didn't. And I don't regret that, Tony, because I came home expecting you to have gone back to your own apartment, and yet you were here. When I asked you about it the next morning you said it was because I'd told you I'd be back. That was the moment I realized you cared enough to stay. That was also the moment I realized … that I care enough to want to come home to you. You're my home, Tony. It doesn't matter if we get into some big fight and I feel like leaving, because somewhere along the way I'd decided that you're the one I want to be committed to."

He abruptly buried his face into her hair, pulling a startled gasp from her. "So … no coming home one day to find you and your bags all gone?"

"No. _Never._" He drew her tight against him, and she just let him hold her and (she suspected) cry into her hair. Rubbing his side again, she turned and burrowed her own face into the curve of his neck, inhaling his scent. It was soap with just a hint of something uniquely Tony, and it reminded her so much of how she loved him that her breath caught in her throat.

She'd finally found where she belonged.

xoxo

It was still dark when she opened her eyes, but the memories of the previous night came back with a rush that sent her bolting upright, her heart racing. He stirred beside her, and she looked down to find him blinking sleepily up at her.

"Tony," she whispered, cringing, "I'm so sorry I fell asleep on you."

He smiled lazily and tugged on her arm to get her to settle back down beside him. "'S 'kay. Thought it was … kinda cute."

"'Cute'?" She raised her eyebrows at him.

"'Cause you didn't mind that I … y'know, wouldn't let go of you."

A smile touched her lips as she stroked his face gently. "You needed to hold me, yes?"

His eyes widened, and for a moment it seemed as if he were coming to another decision she wasn't privy to. And then he stilled her hand and slowly propped himself up on one elbow to gaze down at her. "I think I'm finally ready to say it, Zi."

Her heart skipped a beat. "Say what?" she asked, even though she had an idea.

He softly caressed her mouth with his thumb, appearing lost in thought. And then, finally, he took a deep breath, and the beautiful eyes that met hers seemed to shine with contentment. "I love you."


	2. Adoration

**Summary: A day in the life of. 'Nuff said! This is actually a prompt from Bree, who wanted to see what Tony and Ziva as a couple would be like, when they're at work. I hope I didn't make it too OOC. o.o**

**Disclaimer: I don't celebrate Christmas, so I guess I'm not getting an NCIS contract for it. :( oh, and I don't own Lewis Carroll's _Alice _character, either.**

**Spoilers: A certain picture which sat on McGee's desktop for a while and made Ziva threaten him, and which was tacked to a certain notice board in a certain room on a certain ship for a certain few months. I don't remember all the episodes it was in, but I'm _sure _y'all know what I'm talkin' 'bout. :D**

**Notes: This chapter's time setting is about three months after the first chapter. It contains Tony/Ziva-romance (obviously) and Ziva/McGee-friendship. It also contains hints of McGee's romantic feelings towards ... well, some girl! And it has general team interactions. This chapter is _most definitely _rated T, because of moderate amounts of sexual innuendo, and a swear word that ... usually doesn't find its way into my fics, lol. Finally, fluff alert.**

**Dedication: To Bree! Happy Belated Birthday, my future sister-in-law whom I'm going to bake pies with (or maybe we'll just leave the baking to Jaids and sip lemonade in the shade).**

** Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

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><p><strong>Adoration<strong>

_7.40AM_

They were squabbling before they had even set foot into the bullpen; this time, it was about what colour to redo the kitchen in. She thought they should paint it a faded yellow; he thought yellow was too cheery and egg-yolk-y and altogether just really off for two federal agents who investigated particularly high-profile or important murders.

"It's not like the murders happen in our home," she pointed out loudly, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw McGee pinch the bridge of his nose. Admittedly, she and Tony had been unable to keep their little arguments to themselves.

"I know, but it's still too cheery. It's like the kitchen of a perfect little housewife in a tiny little suburbia just north of Wonderland. It's so cheery!" Tony protested as they split and went behind their own desks, throwing down their bags and mock-glaring at each other.

"Have you even _read _Alice in Wonderland? It's not cheery! It's creepy." She sat down with a huff and turned on her computer.

He made a sound of exasperation. "Yeah, sure. That's what the argument is about. I don't see why we can't take my idea of leaving it as it is."

"You're just lazy to repaint, Tony."

"Well, why do we _need _to repaint?"

"Because, DiNozzo," Gibbs barked, striding in with the signature cup of coffee in hand, "your apartment looks like the last time anybody cleaned it was in the 1980s. Gear up."

"Wait," Tony paused, hovering over his bag, "you've never seen our apartment before, Boss."

"Ziver showed me pictures. Now gear up, and _shut up._" Gibbs strode off to the elevator, and she smirked at her boyfriend as they followed their boss. Tony made a face at her, and McGee just rolled his eyes.

"Hey, Boss?" Tony offered tentatively as they stepped into the elevator. "Just so you know, the apartment's lookin' much better now."

"I don't care!" Gibbs growled back.

xoxo

_9.03AM_

"Log, Zi."

He automatically extended a hand to help her over the moss-covered lump, and she automatically reached out a hand to take his. It wasn't until her two feet hit the ground on the other side that she blinked and realized what had just happened.

"I could've gotten over that on my own," she informed him.

His own blink seemed just as surprised, and he grinned sheepishly before turning and leading their way to the body. She heard him cough something that sounded suspiciously like "Women" under his breath, and her chuckle was amused enough to make both Gibbs and McGee, up ahead, glance back at her.

xoxo

_9.52AM_

"Tony, stop taking pictures of my butt," she chided impatiently as she bent down to pick up another piece of evidence.

He took a shot of the crime scene before turning back to her, camera held ready in both hands. "I'm simply admiring a work of art."

She straightened slowly and stared at him in disbelief. "That is creepy."

"Everything creeps you out nowadays."

"Only you." She shuddered. "And everything that has to do with you."

He wrinkled his forehead. "If that's the case, why are you moving in with me?"

"You're good sex."

"Well, you don't seem to mind my ass fixation when we—"

"Keep it at home, DiNozzo," Gibbs muttered as he pushed past them both, and they jumped. She blushed and narrowed her eyes at Tony, whose lewd smile broadened. She bent down again to do her work; he continued with his previous occupation.

xoxo

_11.01AM_

"Tony!" McGee snapped in annoyance all of a sudden. She and Tony both looked up from their work, and at him.

"What, McGoo?"

"Why do I have a hundred pictures of Ziva's … _Ziva, _on my desktop?"

"My what?" she asked, trepidation flooding her.

"Your…" McGee stuttered and turned red. "Your…"

"Posterior, McGoo. Sorry, forgot to delete those. Gimme." Tony held out his hand and beckoned with his fingers; McGee shut his eyes in horror and tossed Tony the camera's memory card.

"You two _really _need to stop with the candid photography." McGee rubbed his temples.

"What's the big deal?" Tony asked as he inserted the memory card into the reader and started clicking away. "You've seen her in a bikini before."

"That was different." McGee gritted his teeth and shot the senior field agent a dark look. "That was before you two started this whatever-thing you're doing."

"It's called a relationship, Probie."

"Whatever it is, it's giving me a headache. It was even worse when I had to see _you _on my screen."

"Hey, I'll—wait." Tony paused, and his eyes widened. "You've seen me on your screen? When? And how many photos?"

McGee gave her a tiny glare from across the bullpen before answering. "It was actually only one; I don't remember when. But that's more than enough for me, Tony. I've no wish to be so intimately acquainted with you."

She snickered and continued typing on her computer, ignoring the intrigued gaze Tony was now setting on her. "Huh," her Italian-suited partner finally said, before returning to the task of deleting the photographs.

xoxo

_1.38PM_

"I still want yellow."

"What?" he asked, tossing the paper napkin over his shoulder and into the waste bin. "Yellow for what?"

Lunch finished, she wiped her mouth and stacked their paper plates together. "For the kitchen."

He groaned. "Can we just talk about this when we go home?"

She shrugged. "Fine. But I am voting for yellow."

He gave her an odd look. "What is with you and the yellow?"

"I don't know." She threw her hands up. "It's just … our apartment … really doesn't look very … happy," she confessed, chewing on her lip as she stared stubbornly at the plates.

There was a short silence before she felt a hand reaching over and tucking her hair behind her ear. His thumb brushed her cheekbone. "You know we're saving up for other things, and we can't afford them if we get a better apartment," he told her softly.

Her head snapped up. "I know. And I want to save up with you. Tony, don't get me wron—"

"Hey," he cut in. "It's alright. We'll get yellow if you want yellow."

She hesitated worriedly. "Really? Because I don't want you to hate the kitchen."

"Well, it's not like I spend whole a lot of time in it. I probably just go in to get beers or something. It's more important that you like it: you're the one who spends the most time in there."

"I don't mean to sound so … you know, bitchy. I love our apartment. It's just…"

"I get it." He leant forward and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Y'know, I kinda think I'm coming 'round to the idea of our apartment looking 'happy.'"

She laughed and smacked his arm lightly. "No teasing," she warned, and he grinned.

"I don't _tease_. I get _straight to the point_."

She rolled her eyes, albeit while holding back a smile. "You know that's not what I mean."

"Yeah. But you owe me."

"Ugh, fine."

"It's not like you won't enjoy it, anyway."

She tilted her head and looked contemplatively at him. "Well, that's true."

xoxo

_3.50PM_

"You love him."

She blinked and looked away from the Observation Room window at McGee. "What?"

"Tony. You love him."

She glanced back at Tony (who was currently trying to interview a suspect) before furrowing her brows at McGee. For some reason, she still felt the need to defend how she felt about Tony. "Yes. I do."

"Huh," McGee answered absent-mindedly, lost in thought.

"Is there a reason you care whether I love him?"

"I-It's just … you know, if you and Tony can get together, then there's still hope for me and … right?"

She watched as he gave her a tiny and half-hopeful, half-self-deprecating smile. Her heart softened, and she shifted closer. "Yes."

"I should tell her."

"You should."

"She's probably moved on by now, though."

"Well…" She lifted her shoulders and dropped them. "I can't speak for her, but I do think she will appreciate hearing it, all the same."

"You think so?"

"Yes. You and she have a good relationship, McGee, no matter what kind it is. She will appreciate hearing whatever you have to say."

McGee nodded thoughtfully. "Thanks, Ziva."

She smiled. "Good luck."

xoxo

_5.45PM_

"One Berry Mango Maddness for the lady," Tony announced cheerfully as he placed a plastic cup on her table, and she smiled her thanks at him before returning to her work.

"You were supposed to chase leads, DiNozzo, not buy fruity drinks for your girl," Gibbs said from his desk.

"Ah, coffee for you, Boss?" Tony grinned as he held up a coffee cup. "We went and checked out the leads; nothing interesting or suspicious. We did pass by this drinks place on the way back though, and—"

"Are you kissing ass?" Gibbs questioned.

"_Nooo,_ of course not."

"Good. Put it on my desk and get back to work."

"Right, Boss."

xoxo

_7.15PM_

"Go on. Get outta here." Gibbs breezed through the bullpen, grabbing his coat on the way, and was gone in less than five seconds.

Tony jumped up immediately. "C'mon, Zi. Let's go home."

"Hang on…" She entered one last keystroke on her computer and closed the program, and then shut the computer down. "Okay, I'm finished."

Grabbing her coat and backpack, she joined Tony in the middle of the bullpen, but turned back to look at McGee, who sat with his eyes diligently trained on the computer. "McGee," she began, "aren't you going home?"

He gave her a gentle smile. "No. I think I might have something to do."

"At this hour, Probie? What, are you writing stories on your work computer now?" Tony butted in with incredulity. She pushed him towards the elevator, giving McGee a nod over her shoulder. McGee nodded back in affirmation. "Hey! What's this secret Klingon code you two got going on?"

"None of your business, Tony," she told him firmly, taking up his hand and pulling him towards the elevator.

"I wanna know!" he whined.

She sighed and pressed the elevator button. "Behave, Toh-nee, or you won't get dessert."

"Ooh." He sidled up against her, losing all interest in McGee. "There's dessert?"

"Yes. But not here." She gave him a threatening look. "_Behave._"

Muttering rather mutinously, he retreated a few inches. She smiled her approval, and he put on his best innocent expression that made her heart skip a few beats.

She would never tell him, but there were days when she adored him beyond anything in the world.


	3. Symbolism

**So here I am! After one month, heh ... *sheepish laughter.***

**This chapter is very Gibbs-oriented; the first half involves a conversation between him and Tony (told from Tony's POV), and the second half is a conversation between him and Ziva (told from Ziva's POV). You'll see.**

**It's written in _italics _because it takes place before the first two chapters ... I thought the italics might make things clearer. Probably not, but I really like slanty words. I hope you do, too!**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

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><p><strong>Symbolism<strong>

It's strange how symbolic a flight of stairs can be, _he reflected. Whenever he had been in need of a good talk, these steps had been a comfort to him; wooden and well-worn, they were gentle on the feet and indicative of the large number of foot traffic they had sustained throughout the years. They were safe. Trustable. Like their owner._

_Now, though, in the weak moonlight, they were almost like a descent into the dark unknown._

_He had no idea how Gibbs would react. He didn't know if there would be things thrown (which was unlikely, since Gibbs wasn't prone to big displays of any_ _emotion), or words of anger spoken (which had already happened once before), or sanctions imposed (which, as would be evidenced by the letter he held in his hand, he had already prepared for)._

_He reached the bottom stair, and dared to look up at Gibbs then; the older man narrowed his eyes at Tony before continuing to sand the carved block of wood which sat before him. Tony braved the last few steps over to the workstation and sat down opposite his boss like he'd done once, more than two years ago._

"_Well, this feels familiar…" he began, and Gibbs' forehead twitched in a manner that might have been an eye roll._

"_Yep."_

"_Listen, Boss … I know you know about me and Ziva."_

"_I do."_

"_I don't know how you feel about that, and quite frankly, I'm not willing to find out. So I'm here to hand in my request for transfer." He laid the folded piece of paper in front of Gibbs, trying to clear away the lump that had formed in his throat._

_Gibbs took up the letter and unfolded it, peering at it. After what must've been an eternity, he looked up at Tony again. "Well-typed, DiNozzo."_

"_Thanks."_

_The paper was torn into half in less than a millisecond, and Tony could only gape helplessly at his boss. "I don't accept."_

"_Boss—"_

"_I ever ask you to quit, DiNozzo?"_

"_No. But … rule number twelve."_

"'_Never date a co-worker.'"_

"'_Never date a co-worker.' She's not just a co-worker to me, Boss … she's _Ziva._"_

"_Ziva's your co-worker."_

_Tony grew angry. "You can't just _tear _up my letter and—"_

"_Rule number eight," Gibbs interrupted quietly, and that made him even angrier._

"_Stop quot—"_

"_DiNozzo." The single word held a warning tone, so he settled down sullenly. "Rule number eight."_

_He sighed and recited the rule, like a well-practised robot. Or a well-trained underling. "'Never take anything for granted.'"_

"_Mmhmm."_

"_What's your point?"_

"_You took it for granted. That I was right about rule twelve."_

"_Was I supposed to _question_ you?" he snarled._

"_Yeah, DiNozzo. I teach you the rules, you break them and come up with your own. It's that simple."_

"_Like hell it is. Why were you yelling at me about EJ, the—"_

"You broke one of my rules. _Of course I was pissed,_ _DiNozzo. What did you expect, applause?"_

_He opened and shut his mouth a few times, suddenly feeling terribly lost. "Would've been nice if you'd been on my side, Boss."_

_Gibbs studied him for a long time before picking up the sander and resuming work on the block of wood. "Couldn't do that. But just because I was pissed doesn't mean I stopped counting you as part of my team."_

_Tony ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "Am I still part of your team now?"_

"_Yep."_

"_Are you pissed? About me and Ziva."_

"_Yep."_

"_Boss…"_

"_Gonna get over it eventually, DiNozzo." Gibbs peered up at him. "Show me that you can make this work, and neither of you will have to quit. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why I put the rule there. You lose your objectivity, you pull yourself outta the case. It could save both your and Ziva's lives."_

"_Yeah," he answered tiredly as Gibbs went back to work. "I know."_

"_Sometimes what you get at the end is worth the fight."_

"_Boss?" he questioned, startled by the cryptic piece of advice._

"_Some things are worth having me pissed at you for."_

"_Oh."_

"_Don't screw up, DiNozzo." Gibbs met his eyes again. "That would piss me off even more. And she's a keeper."_

_Tony felt a smile grow on his face for the first time that night. "She is."_

_Gibbs rolled his eyes again. "_Kids,_" he muttered in disgust._

xoxo

_She could tell the exact moment Gibbs stopped being angry at them, because his headslaps got a little lighter and his glares grew a little less stern._

_In the same way she could tell that they were going to be in big trouble now, really big mother-of-all-headslaps trouble; but she couldn't help it—she needed to talk to someone, and she needed it to be Gibbs._

_So she paid a visit to the basement that, on good days, felt suffused with warmth even if it was cold and dark outside. The basement was the team's little cocoon of safety; its walls were as sturdy and private as their owner, and just as welcoming._

_Now, though, she wasn't sure which part of her trembled the most._

_She stared at him from her position at the foot of the stairs, unsure of whether to move forward, until he sighed and gathered two glass jars and a bottle of bourbon. When he plunked them down onto the workstation in the middle of the room she found that her feet brought her of their own accord to him. He poured the bourbon, and she sat down opposite him; he took one jar and pushed the other towards her, and simply said, "Talk."_

_She stared down into the jar of bourbon, feeling tempted to just swirl her finger in it like a little girl. Some things were so much easier left unsaid—but, no. If she wanted to leave them unsaid then she might as well have gone and drowned her sorrows in a bar. "Tony and I had an argument," she finally began, shakily._

"_I figured."_

"_Our first argument—first big argument." _As a couple.

"_Yeah."_

"_I don't know what to do."_

"_That bad?"_

_She shook her head jerkily. "N-no. It was small. Really small. And it was my pride…" She hid an errant tear with a scratch under her eye, but he mustn't have been fooled anyway, because he came around the worktable and stood close, a reassuring hand lain on her shoulder._

"_Couples fight all the time," he said._

"_I know. But not about this … I mean, this is _stupid._"_

"_If it's stupid then you wouldn't be here."_

_She took a shuddering breath. "My door … has two latches. I fasten them every night before I go to bed. But these few weeks Tony has been staying at my place and … sometimes he goes to bed later than I do, so I ask him to check everything and turn off all the lights. Which he does, but he keeps forgetting the latches … I talked to him about it, the first few mornings. But he still forgets and this morning I just snapped…"_

"_Seemed fine when you got to work."_

"_We were running late and I could not pick a fight with him then. But when we got home I confronted him about it, and I guess he snapped, too. He said I was being paranoid and excessively worried about safety … he's right. My door already has a deadbolt and another lock that I engage when we get home; I do not need the latches. But they…"_

"_Make you feel safe," Gibbs finished her trailed-off thought._

"_Yes. And I know that I am more than capable of protecting myself but this is my home, Gibbs. I-it's the one place that I have control over; that I don't have to worry about being in."_

"_Mmhmm. Tony know that?"_

"_I cannot start confirming his ideas that I'm paranoid, now."_

"_Call him."_

"_What?" She couldn't stop the hurt from seeping into her voice; she hadn't expected Gibbs to be the most sympathetic listener in the world, but for him to take Tony's side stung more than it should have._

"_Call him; tell him you'll be home later." He gave her shoulder a squeeze. "You'll want to be, Ziver. Trust me."_

_She fumbled out her cell phone and pressed speed dial 1, and just so Tony could understand that she was still angry at him, her words when he answered were clipped, "I'll be back. Do not wait up."_

_Then she threw down her cell phone, and all the fight left her. Gibbs gave her another squeeze as her shoulders slumped, and left her side to lean against the work table, looking down at her. "You should talk to him."_

"_I can't, Gibbs. He would not understand."_

"_He cares. Sometimes that's more important than understanding."_

_She laughed sadly and shook her head. "Not when it's Tony. When Tony does not understand something … he does not care."_

"_He almost left the team for you."_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_He almost left." Gibbs ambled over to his shelves and pulled out two torn halves of a piece of paper before walking back and handing them to her. "Thought these might come in handy sometime."_

_She put together the two pieces of paper and tried to read the black text, but really, she found it hard see past the tears. It was undoubtedly a request for transfer, from its underlined title to the very familiar signature at the bottom. _His _scrawl. _His _signature. A letter dating back to a few weeks after they had started taking it long-term, and she couldn't understand it._

"_Why would he do something like that?" she whispered._

"_Thought I wasn't gonna let you date and be on the same team."_

"_So he asked to leave?"_

"_Mmhmm. Had an idea he probably hadn't told you when he came slinking down the basement stairs like that … you wouldn't have let him leave."_

"_No. Of course not."_

_Gibbs watched her for a while. "Ziver, he cares. Almost quit for you once, and almost gave up his life for you once. He's not gonna mind two latches."_

"_It's not the latches…" She sighed into the torn paper. "I can fasten the latches, but the point is that he … I…"_

"_Afraid he can't handle your need for safety."_

"_Yes," she breathed out, and something in her clenched painfully even though she was glad Gibbs could understand._

"_Well, you're either gonna have to leave them unlatched or tell him."_

"_Can it not be neither?"_

"_Yeah. But then there's the beginning of your secrets."_

_Her breath caught. "I don't want that with him."_

"_Nope."_

_She opened her mouth, but words failed her, and in the end she settled for a numb "Okay" and a single nod._

_He leant in and pressed a kiss to her temple. "You can do it."_

_She nodded again, her lip trembling against her will._

"_If he bullies you, let me know," her father figure continued. "I'll break his legs for you."_

_She choked out a tearful laugh. "Thank you, Gibbs."_

_Gibbs gave her a tiny smile. "Yep. Now go back to your man, Ziver. He's waiting for you."_

"_How do you know?"_

"_Perspective."_


	4. Old Age

**Just a short one :P I expected it to be longer, but it turned out short, and I hope you like it this way. This one takes place a few months after Chapter Two, where they move in together.**

**Spoilers: The episode in which there is (very specifically) hair, balding men, and grey hair which can be very sexy. I don't remember which episode that is, but if you've watched it, you probably know which episode I'm talking about, lol.**

**Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own NCIS!**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

><p><strong>Old Age<strong>

A muffled groan from the bathroom on a beautiful Sunday afternoon had her crashing in, concerned that Tony had fallen and hit his head on something, before she belatedly realized that he could've been doing very unsavoury things in there that she'd just walked in on.

Thankfully, though, he wasn't doing anything stranger than sitting on the toilet bowl with a towel around his waist and a tiny pair of tweezers in his hand. Upon closer inspection, a petri dish sat carefully balanced on the edge of the bathtub; in it were a number of thin, dark strands.

She wrinkled her nose and walked up to him as he stared at her with no small amount of surprise at her abrupt entrance. "Tell me you are not counting hairs again," she said, and he scowled defiantly.

"It's important that I know the rate at which I'm growing old."

"Tony, hair fall is not a definite indicator of old age!"

"But it _may _be an indicator, and I certainly hope I don't have scalp infection. Twenty-one, Ziva, twenty-one hairs! My scalp's not itchy. I'm getting old."

She sighed and sat down on the edge of the bathtub, carefully avoiding all contact with the petri dish of hairs he'd retrieved from the drain hole. "Why does growing old bother you so much?"

"You wouldn't ask that if _you _were growing old," he grumbled.

"I _am _growing old. Time does not wor—"

"Old_er, _Ziva, you're growing old_er_. It'll be a while yet before you've to consider dyeing your hair every other week and using push-up bras to keep things in their appropriate places."

She raised her eyebrows and quirked her lips. "Are you saying you are of the age where you would like to consider using push-up bras?"

He glared at her. "My age is a laughing matter to you, isn't it?"

She softened and laid a hand on his knee, lightly stroking his skin with her fingertips. "Yes. But only because I do not care about it."

"You wouldn't say that once you got to polish my nice, shiny bald head."

"That will be a while yet," she answered with a laugh. "And I would still say it then."

"You'd be lying."

"No, I would not." She eyed his spiky brown strands. "You have very nice hair, I admit, but it is not the only part of you I love."

"Well, y'know, sooner or later every part of me is gonna show signs of aging."

"That is fine." She shrugged. "I am prepared for it. You are prepared for it. It should not come as a surprise to either of us, hmm?"

"I'm _so _not prepared for it," he groaned, tossing the tweezers into the bathtub. "Just the thought of losing this attractive-looking package … I mean, not that I wanna attract any women other than you, but my looks define who I am."

"You are digging a hole for yourself."

"Sorry."

She sighed again and shifted closer to him, lifting her hand up to stroke his cheek. "Tony, _I_ will care about you no matter what."

He turned his head several degrees so that he could kiss her palm, and then his serious eyes met hers. "Even if you looked like Beauty taking the Beast out for a walk?"

"You would not look like the Beast. And even if you did … the Beast had a good heart, yes? That is why Belle, who grew and learnt and matured alongside the Beast, fell in love with him."

He gave a quiet chuckle. "Compliment disguised in a metaphor, David?"

"You came up with the metaphor." She tapped her fingertips against his face meditatively. "Yet now that I think about it, you _are_ like the Beast. Not in looks, but in your belief of yourself."

His only response was to open his mouth, pause, and then close it again, looking lost for words.

She returned her hand to his knee and got down to business. "I wish I could persuade you that you'd be attractive no matter how you look, but I can't. So how about this, DiNozzo. If you do not leave me when I grow old, I will not leave you when you grow old."

"Not really a fair deal to you, is it? I'm gonna grow old first."

She shook her head. "This is not about 'fair.' This is … about…"

"You realize you just pledged your life to me?" he asked quietly, voicing her unspoken thoughts as she trailed off. She smiled uncertainly, chewed on her bottom lip in an attempt to stop the blush from creeping up her cheeks.

"Y-yes. Yes, I guess I did."

"… I'm not sure you know what you're getting into here. Ziva, as much as I'd fancy having you around 'til the day I die, I really don't want you to do it out of some notion that you have to take care of the old and the invalid."

She tightened her grip on his knee. "_You are not old, _and you are not invalid. And I am not doing this out of duty. Assuming that we do work out, and you … do decide to make this … permanent, I would very much like to know what it'd be like to polish your nice, shiny bald head. I want this. What … what remains to be seen is whether you want it, too."

"Huh." He watched her contemplatively as she grew nervous, and then finally he held out his hand to be shaken. "Deal."

She nodded, unable to keep from blushing this time. "Deal. But I am not shaking your hand which just touched the drain hole, Tony."

He made a face. "I used tweezers!"

"I don't care! That is disgusting."

"You know I'm gonna keep doing it, anyway."

"Ergh. Remind me not to come into the bathroom while you are in here."

"Even if I'm hot, wet, and naked?"

"Especially if you are hot, wet, naked, and tweezing hairs from the drain hole."

He pouted. "Fine. Knock and I'll give you a status alert before you come in."

"Now I cannot sneak in on the hot, wet, naked you."

"Well, you can't have everything, Ziva."

"You could always stop tweezing hairs from the drain hole."

"Then how can I keep track of—"

"This obsession with getting old, Tony," she interrupted, "must be unhealthy, surely."

"Technically, I'm obsessed with _not _getting old. And for your information, I doubt I'm the first or would be the last person ever to count hairs from the drain hole."

"It is still disgusting."

"And yet you chose to pledge your life to me."

"Ooh!" She threw her hands up in exasperation. "Don't make me regret it."

He laughed at that. "Alright, fine. I'll stop. I'll stop tweezing."

"Thank you."

"One condition."

"… Yes?" she asked warily.

"Can I count my wrinkles?"


	5. High-Maintenance

**_Sooo_ ... what's it been, almost three months? :/**

**Would it make up for things if I said this story was almost 2000 words long? No?**

**How 'bout if I said I was distracted with writing an epic, 30-chapter fic with an 8-chapter sequel? :D**

**Okay, I'll stop now. I'll just say that for those of you who've been reading since I published Chapter One, thank you, _thank you _for sticking with this fic and still reading it after so long. I'd promise to be quicker with the next update, but I don't know when I can next update, so I can only promise that I'll try. And I have like a 95% success rate on promises, in case anyone's wondering :/  
><strong>

**This story takes place the day after the previous chapter, and is very much tied to it. It's also a little zany but, oh well, I have weird ideas sometimes. I hope it's still logical and in character :D**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**Love,**

**_Soph_**

* * *

><p><strong>High-Maintenance<strong>

She was mixing a teaspoon of honey into the well-beaten egg yolk when he wandered into the kitchen, most likely having just finished the movie he had been watching. _Die Another Day, _it'd been, and she'd enjoyed the beginning but hadn't seen the ending because she'd gotten up to get the ingredients ready.

"What are you making?" he asked, sweeping her hair to one side so that he could kiss her neck, and she smiled and turned her head to press her lips to his.

"You will see."

"Is that egg yolk?" he asked distractedly, frowning at the small bowl she had in her hands.

"Yes."

"What are you making that involves egg yolk _alone_?"

She tapped his lip warningly. "I told you, you will see."

"Ooh, it's a surprise?" he queried eagerly, and she wondered if he noticed how her laughter was tinged with a hint of wicked gleefulness.

"Yes."

He stared at her long and hard, but she kept her gaze from his and continued to mix the honey with the egg yolk until he grew a bit unnerved. "Okay, I'm just gonna go watch some James Bond." His exit from the kitchen was the slightest bit more hurried than his entrance.

He'd definitely noticed.

But that was okay, because she still intended to have her fun with him, anyway.

xoxo

"Tony," she called later from the bathroom, sticking her head out to look at him from the doorway. "I need you to come here."

He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, not looking away from the TV screen. "I swear I didn't pick anything outta the drain hole."

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "That is very informative, but it's not what I'm looking for. Come here. Please."

Breathing out with exaggerated patience, he paused the movie and ambled over to her. "What?"

With a fluid jerk, she pulled him into the bathroom and shut the door, slipping behind him and effectively blocking his only exit. "Okay, I'm done," she announced, jerking her head at the two shallow bowls which she'd taken from the kitchen into the bathroom. "_Now _you can ask what they are."

He looked at them warily, probably all the more so because he was trapped in the room. "Do I want to know?"

She beamed at him. "Yes, you do. This one," she reached towards the bathroom counter without leaving her spot and brushed the rim of the bowl on the nearer to her, "is egg yolk, honey, and olive oil, and it is for your face. The other one is olive oil and chamomile essential oil. It is for your hair."

"Huh?" he asked dumbly, his forehead drawing into a frown. "Wait, am I supposed to drink them?"

She rolled her eyes. "_No, _Tony. They are not medicinal soups. I will put them on your face and your scalp."

"You're gonna put egg on my face?"

"Yes."

"No way." His eyes darted around, but she knew he could see no way out. "Oh, no way. You're not putting egg on my face. Are you kidding me?" He paused, a dazed expression seeping into his eyes as his mouth fell open. "That is a _mask,_" he said, jabbing indignantly at the second bowl with horror creeping into his voice at his epiphany.

"It is a face mask, yes." She grinned jubilantly.

"Like that white stuff women put on their faces? With the two pieces of _cucumber_?"

"Well, I do not have cucumber with me right now, but we do have some leftover from lunch in the kitchen if you want it."

He groaned and buried his face into his hands. "McGee's never gonna let me live this down."

"Is that an agreement to do this?"

He scoffed and lifted his head. "_No, _I'm not agreeing to anything. You're forcing me to do this, since you _locked _me into the bathroom."

She shrugged shamelessly. "You could just remove me from your path."

"Like you wouldn't kill me with a toothbrush or something."

"Yes, whatever. Clean your face and hair with warm water, and then go sit on the toilet so that I can massage the oil into your scalp."

Scowling at her, he turned on the faucet.

xoxo

"My leg is cramping."

"No, it's not."

"Yeah, it is," he insisted, making to stand up and leave the bathroom.

She sighed and stilled his movements with a quick kiss to his cheek, resting one hand against his neck and dabbing the fingertips of her other hand into the olive oil so that she could apply the oil onto his head.

He shot her a reproachful look out of the corner of his eye. "You're taking away my masculinity."

She snorted gently. "You are the one who is fussing about wrinkles and hair loss, which is something usually only females do."

"That's not true. I bet Tom Cruise worries about his hair every day," he retorted, and she raised her eyebrows. "What? It's normal, okay, for men to worry about hair loss. It's not so obvious in women, so they don't have to worry about it."

She tilted his head with her hands. "Regardless of who should worry more, I know that _you _worry about it, and that's why I am doing this."

"Am I your guinea pig or something?"

She chuckled. "I am not going to deny it."

"Have you even tried these remedies before?"

"No, but I did research."

He sighed. "Zi?" he asked softly, and sounded so abruptly morose that she actually stopped what she was doing.

"What's the matter?"

"Y'know, what I said yesterday … about Beauty and the Beast. Are you sure you don't want to reconsider?"

She frowned in confusion. "Reconsider the metaphor?"

"Reconsider our promise. 'Cause don't get me wrong, it's sweet that you're doing this, but I don't…"

He trailed off, and she didn't know from whence came her sudden enlightenment as to his thoughts, but she understood. Squeezing herself in between his knees and the bathtub, she sat down and kissed him—on the lips, this time. She cupped his face with one hand, making sure that he met her eyes. "You are not a burden," she told him firmly.

He looked away. "Never said I was."

"No, you didn't. But I thought you should know it, anyway. I am not doing this because I think that I can only love you if you keep your looks, Tony. I am doing this because … if it doesn't work, then I had my fun; but if it does, then maybe you will feel a little better about yourself, and that will make me happy. I don't care how you look."

"Well, that's certainly wounding," he muttered dryly, and she felt impatience creep up her spine. Shaking off the feeling, she persisted.

"You are … how do they say? Hot. You have always been, and I would be lying if I said I do not find your hair _very _attractive. But that is not why I care for you. That is not why I feel … in love, sometimes, when I look at you. And that is not what gives me a happy pang in my heart when you do something sweet. You have the liberty of picking yourself to bits and pieces, judging and criticizing each part, where I do not, because it could only hurt me when I love you this much. But please, do not do me the injustice of saying that I care for you only because I thought you could be the male model in a swimsuit catalogue."

He pursed his lips, an expression halfway between chagrin and laughter crossing his face. "Look, Zi, all I'm saying is … I am not worth this trouble. I mean, I may be a clueless guy, but I'm not _that _clueless. I know these masks are not just a one-time miracle drug. I know things need … maintenance, or whatever, and that's just it. I don't wanna be this much trouble. I don't wanna be—"

She cut him off with a stern look and a finger to his lips. "You are high-maintenance, but so am I. Yet you bring me coffee every morning and make me a cup of tea every night, and you never complain."

"That's different."

"How? How is it different?"

"I don't know. You reward me with a kiss. It's a no-brainer."

She chuckled, shaking her head and patting his face lightly with her clean hand because that wasn't the reason he made her tea, and they both knew it. "Well, then, I guess you'll just have to kiss me when I'm done trying to make you smile."

He raised his hand to cover hers on his cheek, his eyes dropping as he exhaled deeply and brought their hands down. "I don't know what to say."

"Then … maybe this is the clichéd answer, but say you'll let me do this. Please."

"Why is this so important to you?"

"For the same reason you make me tea."

A tiny smile wavered at the corners of his lips. "Okay."

She leant forward and kissed him wherever she could reach—his forehead, his nose, his lips. "Okay."

xoxo

He'd said no photographs.

She wasn't about to listen, of course, because she'd recently discovered that he _still _had the pictures of her in a bikini on his computer, and he was currently wearing a shower cap, a yellowish face mask, and two pieces of cucumber.

"_Zivaaa,_" he groaned when he heard the click of the camera, and she smirked.

"Yes, Tony?" she asked innocently.

He removed the two pieces of cucumber from his eyes and glared at her. "No pictures, remember?"

"Do you even know me at all?"

"I _trust _you not to do something damaging to my ego."

"Nice try, DiNozzo. If you delete those pictures from your laptop, we'll talk."

"What pictures?"

"The ones of me wearing a bikini?"

"You aren't supposed to know I still have those photos."

"It's too bad I do."

"Ugh, fine, _fine. _I'll delete the photos. Just stop taking pictures, okay?"

She cocked an eyebrow sceptically, raising the camera and pressing the button. "I need leverage."

"Okay. Please, I'm _begging _you, don't send them to McGoo."

She deliberately paused, pretending to think about his request. "Not until I need them as leverage," she finally answered with a grin. "Now keep quiet and let the masks, uh … do their thing."

He returned the cucumber to his eyes, groaning again when he heard her take another picture.

xoxo

"So, how do you feel?" she queried from the living room couch as he exited the bathroom, and he probed gingerly at his newly washed scalp before going to sit beside her.

"I survived."

"It was not that bad, was it?" she asked with a knowing smile.

"No, I guess not," he answered reluctantly.

She chortled at his pout. "You actually mean to say that you quite enjoyed it, but won't admit to it."

"I do _not, _but maybe—_maybe_—my face feels a bit smoother." Ignoring her outright laughter, he slung an arm around her shoulders and shifted awkwardly so that he could press his nose into her hair. "Zi?" he whispered, and she stopped laughing because he sounded so serious once again.

"Hmm?"

He stayed silent for a long time, thinking. Finally, he entangled the fingers of his free hand with hers. "I love making you tea."

It took her a while to figure out that he wasn't actually talking about his beverage-making preferences for her, but when she did, she felt a beam grow and threaten to split her face.

And she just squeezed his hand and said, "I know."


	6. The Art of Relaxation

**LOOK, LOOK, I'm faster with this update. Seriously! I'm six weeks ahead! Aren't you impressed? :D**

**Okay, jokes aside, this chapter takes place around the same time as the previous two. So, maybe a few days or weeks later?**

**Dedication: MIKEY MIKEY MIKEY this is for you! Ily XD**

**Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

><p><strong>The Art of Relaxation<strong>

"See, this isn't so bad."

Ziva rolled her eyes at Tony's words, reaching over the edge of the bathtub for her glass of wine. "It is only the alcohol that makes it tolerable."

"You haven't even drunk a single mouthful."

"I am anticipating the things it will do for me."

"What, relaxing you enough to take a single bath?" Tony rearranged his features into a hurt expression. "Being naked and in a tub of bubbles with me doesn't do that for you?"

"Tony, you don't like foam baths. The only reason we are doing this is because the woman at the store had nice eyes and convinced you to buy bath salts. And bath oils. _Scented _bath oils. You are going to smell like lavender when you get out of this tub." She waved her free hand emphatically, but he shrugged, choosing to ignore the latter half of her response.

"I never said I didn't like foam baths; I said I didn't usually have a reason to have them. Now I do." She felt a tingling sensation on her thigh underwater, as if he were inching his toes across her skin.

"If that is your foot, you should remove it before I remove it for you."

The tingling sensation stopped—she kind of missed it, even though she'd never admit to it—, and he pouted. "You fail to see any romance in this situation."

She sighed and returned her wine glass to the floor before sliding deeper into the water. "I'm sorry. I'm just not used to … to…"

"Taking baths?"

"Well, maybe that. But, mostly, _sharing _a bath."

"Haven't you ever done it before?" He frowned.

She shook her head. "No. Have you?"

"Yeah, when I was with … you know what, that doesn't matter." He nudged her leg. "Why haven't you done it before?"

She rubbed her arm. "Do you want the clichéd answer or the non-clichéd one?"

"There are two?"

"Yes."

"Both."

"Okay. Clichéd answer: Mossad did not make time for bath-sharing. Non-clichéd answer: It simply never crossed my mind."

He paused, a confused look in his eyes. "Huh."

She prodded _his _leg with her toes to get his attention back. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing. Just … y'know, you're missing out on the small pleasures in life."

She gave him the hint of a smile. "Now I am sharing one with you."

"Yeah, but you don't exactly look like you're enjoying it."

She furrowed her brows. "It is not that I … am not enjoying it; it is simply that I do not know … what to do now that I'm in here."

That made him laugh. "How 'bout relax, for a start? Lots of tension going on in your shoulders over there."

"I am out of my element," she pointed out, lifting her chin and narrowing her eyes at him.

He held out a hand to her. "Come here." She hesitated before rising to her knees in the tub, preparing to inch over to him. "No, I mean, turn around, back facing me."

"Why?"

He dropped his hand and gave her an exasperated look. "_Ziva_."

She scowled. "Fine." Standing slowly in the tub, she shivered at the sudden change in temperature. She made a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and sank back into the foam-covered water, glad for its encompassing warmth, and scooted backwards until her back met Tony's chest. He responded by gently wrapping his arms around her body.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" he whispered against her ear.

She breathed out, forcing her shoulders to drop. "I guess not," she answered reluctantly.

"I don't get it." His voice sounded perplexed. "You're so frisky in bed, but put you in the water and you're all frigi—ow!"

Ziva smirked and removed her elbow from his ribs. "You might not want to complete that sentence."

"It's true! Geez, Zi, I'm gonna have an elbow-shaped bruise on me tomorrow."

"_Baby,_" she mocked teasingly. "It was only a nudge."

"Yeah, from an assassin. I'd be lucky if I didn't have internal bleeding."

She grinned, tilting her head so that she could look over her shoulder at him as she patted his cheek. "Yes, you would."

He scrunched his face up. "Seriously, what's with you and baths?"

"I _don't know,_" she answered in exasperation, lifting her hands and causing two tiny splashes as she dropped them back into the water. "It is just not how I do things."

"So, you're really not enjoying this?"

"I would not say that I'm not enjoying it; it is simply … to me, it is simply pointless."

"That's kinda the _point. _You relax because you have nothing else to do."

"Do I look like the type of person who cherishes having nothing to do?"

He quietened at that, seemingly pondering her words. "No, I guess not." She gave him her best now-you-see-_my_-point face, and it was his turn to roll his eyes. "C'mon, Zi, you gotta learn to let go a little sometimes."

"Let go of what? I just like being productive."

"Yeah, but you'll work yourself to death always being _productive _this way." He pressed a warm kiss to the side of her face. "You gotta learn to simply … be. And do nothing. Savour the moment."

"Because you're so good at that." She tried to sound sarcastic, but to her dismay, she _was _starting to relax, and her voice came out softer than she'd wanted it to.

He smiled, looking rather smug, and she pressed her elbow threateningly against his ribs. He laughed and drew her forearm away, his palm over the back of her hand, his fingers entwining with hers. "I have a reason for a foam bath now, remember?"

The shaking of her head was somewhat hindered by the fact that he'd started kissing her neck. "You are such a sap, Tony DiNozzo."

"You fall for it every time," he countered, brushing his lips against her skin.

"Only because you're good sex. Is that what we're doing right now?"

He winced. "In the bathtub? Trust me; it's not the best idea. After the bath, though."

"We could take it to the bedroom right now."

He tightened his arms around her the slightest bit. "No. Relax, Ziva. Just take a deep breath or something. In … out."

"I can't relax."

"Yes, you can." She felt his thumb run across the flesh of her hand. "C'mon, Zi, it's just me. Tony DiNozzo, class clown, idiotic boyfriend and supremely special senior field agent. It's not gonna be awkward if you don't do or say anything, and just sit here listening to me talk until your left leg falls asleep or something."

"Why my left leg?"

"The alliteration sounded better."

She gave him a quizzical look. "What?"

He chuckled. "I just mean there doesn't have to be a 'why' for everything. Some things are just because."

She blinked as she thought about that. "Hmm."

"Okay?" He pressed a kiss to her hair, his fingers lightly stroking her side. "Like this bath. _Just because_."

Sighing inwardly, she shifted into a more comfortable position against his chest and resigned herself to a night of being cuddled up in a bath with him. "Okay."


	7. Care

**... Hello :P I realize that I haven't been here in, like, 7, 200 years, and I've to admit that it's completely my fault. This fic was never meant to be top priority and was only supposed to be updated when the mood struck ... and the mood never did. But lately I've been, ah, persuaded by someone to update, and so here I am! This chapter was written a long time ago, but I'm just publishing it now.**

**Setting: The day after Chapter 3 of this fic (where Ziva goes to Gibbs about her and Tony's first big fight as a couple).**

**Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

><p><strong>Care<strong>

_She had always loved the early morning sunlight._

_Coming from a world of darkness, sunlight had been a breath of fresh air in the midst of chaos and spilt blood; it reminded her that the Earth still turned, the sun still rose, and every new morning was still a chance at living. The early hours of the day had always been her favourite time because everything would be quiet and serene and would let her believe, even just for a moment, that all was right with the world._

_Today, though, the sunlight was too glaring. It streamed through the windows of her kitchen as she flipped pancakes on the stove; she squinted and tried not to mind the way it made her head throb and her eyes water._

_She knew it wasn't really the sunlight. She knew it was really the man who was asleep in the other room, _her _bedroom, and who had hurt her very deeply the night before by calling her on her paranoia. Oh, she knew she was paranoid—her still-latched, still-bolted front door would be testament to that. But she had never intended for him to know the fact, and who was he to bring the topic out into the open?_

_Pancakes done, she tipped them onto a plate, adding maple syrup and a fork. She'd never thought of Tony as pancake sort of person—fried bacon had seemed like it'd be more of his thing—but she had come to learn that it was his favourite breakfast food, just like she had come to learn about a lot of his other favourites._

_She knew that stepping into the bedroom was a mistake when he sniffed and opened his eyes, thus ending the pretence of sleep, before she had rearranged her features into the look of someone who'd not been crying just a few minutes before. He must've noticed, because the steel in his eyes softened just a smidge. She bent down to put his breakfast on the bedside table, and his hands gently caught her face before she could turn away; tears burnt the back of her eyelids when he pulled her down to capture her lips in a kiss._

"_Thank you," he said when they broke apart, and she knew he meant her attempt to make up with him._

_She nodded mutely and sat down hard on the floor, wondering if all their future fights would be resolved with breakfast and a kiss, or if they'd simply gotten lucky this time. "You didn't leave," she mentioned shakily, her eyes not quite daring to meet his._

"_You said you'd be back."_

"_Still. I thought you would have gone back to your apartment and waited for the storm to … blow over, yes?"_

_She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye, but he said nothing._

"_Are you still angry with me?" she asked, unable to keep from knowing any longer._

"_I could ask you the same question."_

"_I … do not have a simple answer for you."_

"_Maybe I don't have a simple answer for you, either."_

"_You are still angry with me," she confirmed, and it was a miracle her voice didn't break. She jerked her head at the pancakes. "Eat your breakfast, and—"_

"_Ziva." The slight sharp edge to his voice made her forget her sentence, and her eyes snapped up to his. "I just wanna know what the hell happened last night."_

_She opened and closed her mouth. "Eat your breakfast," was all she managed to choke out, and he slid down onto the floor beside her and cut off a tiny piece of the pancakes, holding the fork up to her lips._

"_We're sharing this," he informed her, and she couldn't find in herself the will to argue._

xoxo

_Breakfast finished, she found herself staring at the floor with one of her hands wrapped in his; neither of them had spoken a word during the entire meal, but she knew by the way his eyeballs were drilling holes into her skull that he was expecting her to explain her overreaction in the previous night._

_It wasn't fair, really. This was her own home—she shouldn't have to explain herself._

_But if it were about fairness, then she'd be in his arms now and he'd be reassuring her that he understood her without her having to say anything._

_No, life was never fair._

_So, she took a deep breath and began. "I know I do not need the latches … theoretically. But you know me, Tony; I like to play it safe when there is no real need to risk my life."_

_He stayed silent._

"_Maybe I am … different … from others," she continued. "Most people do not carry guns and knives on the street. But I am not 'most people.' I am capable of protecting myself, but only because I take the necessary precautions. Those latches … are a precaution. They are how I protect myself."_

_Silence._

"_If you are to call me paranoid, then there is nothing I can do about that. But if I go to bed without fastening those latches, I feel naked … as if I have gone out without my Sig or another weapon. I put all my weapons away when I get home, Tony. Even my gun, believe it or not. This is the place where I can relax and get a good night's sleep, and not have to worry if I miss something with what you call my 'ninja senses.' It is not a matter of whether I can protect myself; it's a matter of whether I _need _to. I do not want to have to stay constantly on guard even in my own home."_

"_Okay."_

"'_Okay'? That is all you are going to say?"_

_He must've heard the slightly panicky rise in her voice, because he gathered her into his arms and pressed a kiss to her hair. "How 'bout, 'But I'm here to protect you'?"_

_She laughed despite herself. "Tony, I do not want what we have to be interrupted by the sudden appearance of an intruder. It does not matter whether we can win the fight, in the case of home; it matters whether we can prevent it in the first place."_

_He sighed and tugged her closer. "Okay."_

"_Why do you keep saying that?"_

"_Well, I still think you're a bit paranoid, but I get it."_

_She pushed against him. "If you still think I'm paranoid, then why don't you just go back to your apartment?"_

"'_Cause I don't want to go back." His answer made her still, her eyes widening as she gazed at him in incomprehension. He gently stroked her hair before leaning his forehead against hers. "I like it here, Ziva, because what we have is still here. And I'll try to remember the latches from now on. I'm sorry I forgot them the other night … I'm sorry I yelled at you when I should have asked you for an explanation first."_

"_I am sorry I did not tell you the truth earlier," she offered ruefully._

"_Truce?"_

"_Truce," she agreed, even though she could hardly believe that things could be that easily solved._

_He kept true to his word, though—even after a month, she still found the latches fastened every single night that he was over. And that, she finally understood, was what Gibbs had meant when he said that Tony _cared.


	8. Payback

**A short chapter :P and a rather nutty one, at that, with a mood setting that's significantly different from other chapters (in a good way, I hope). This one comes a little further into their relationship and takes place at a later time than all other chapters, but has a slight reference to Chapter Two :P no worries, though, it's comprehensible enough for you to just read it without having to go back.**

**Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

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><p><strong>Payback<strong>

One of the great advantages of being trained by Mossad was that one could sneak up on almost anyone one wanted to, and at any time.

On most days, Ziva did not make use of this skill, because she was a woman of principle and she believed that people were entitled to their privacy … at times—which was why she had lately taken to not doing it to Tony.

Today, however, she thought that her skills would come into good use.

"Ready?" Tony asked her, and she nodded. Before he would be fully aware of it, she would be out of the elevator and around the bullpen, crouched right beyond the cubicle wall next to McGee, in place and waiting for her cue.

This she did as her cue strode into the bullpen, all casual and cocky as he always was (except within the four walls of their apartment). "Hey, McGee!" Tony called out as he threw down his backpack, and the younger field agent looked up.

"Morning, Tony." McGee sounded wary, as well he should be. "Where's Ziva?"

"Oh, y'know, she has some stuff to do. Some paperwork to collect, fuel to put into the truck, men to castrate…"

"_What—_"

"Hello, _Thom E. Gemcity._" Ziva rose to her full height, enjoying how McGee sprung up and stumbled back when she bared her teeth. The brown-haired man hurriedly looked around for an escape route, but it was blocked by their very own senior field agent, who had an elbow propped up against the filing cabinets by McGee's desk and a pen twirling in between the fingers of his free hand.

"So," Tony said casually as Ziva stepped around the cubicle wall. "I hear there's a new Deep Six novel out."

"Uh…" McGee stammered. "U-uh, yeah."

Ziva tapped the glossy hardcover that she had produced from her backpack with her fingernails contemplatively before slamming it down onto McGee's desk, grinning as McGee visibly jumped. "Impressively good read, this one. Its sales must be very good, yes?"

"Uhm, moderately so," McGee barely managed to squeak.

"_Really?_" Ziva asked sceptically. "Because I thought that with a romantic relationship that has _moved to the next level, _it would be very popular."

McGee swallowed. "You read that?"

"Oh, yeah," Tony supplied. "Read it, dissected it; and y'know, it's funny, but I don't remember giving you permission to write about our _egg-yolk yellow kitchen walls._"

"Uhm …that wasn't about you?" McGee offered hopefully.

"So, you know another couple named Tommy and Lisa who have kitchen walls the same shade as ours?"

McGee turned beetroot red before their very eyes. "Okay, okay!" he confessed. "I may have borrowed a couple of ideas from your relationship, but it's all complimentary, I swear! You can read it again!"

"McGee, we do not want to read about our _lives _in a book!" Tony snarled.

"So, we have decided," Ziva put in, "that since you obviously spend too much time _studying _our lives, it would be in our best interests to … remove you from our immediate vicinity."

It was remarkable how fast McGee's red face could turn as white as a sheet. "Death or alienation?"

"Both." The grin on Tony's face was one that Ziva was fairly certain she would classify as 'maniacal' if she could be sure that she wasn't wearing the same expression. "Well, actually, we were thinking death by alligator. But Ziva's a ninja, and that would be a waste of her skills. So, we thought of having her cut off your limbs one by one, but that wouldn't count as alienation and we wouldn't want to traumatize her by having her listen to your girlish screams. But _then, _we thought, _maybe _you would like someone to hold your hand as she disintegrated you bit. by. bit. So, we're still trying to decide. What do you think, Probie? Lonely death by alligator or _slow, prolonged, torturous_ death by dismemberment? I'll get me and Ziva some earplugs if it's the latter."

McGee glanced around in a panic. "U-uh, I would rather it was neither."

"Huh. The third option." Tony slammed a set of keys into McGee's chest and growled, "Keys to the truck. You have some paperwork to collect and fuel to put into the truck, because Ziva is still busy threatening to castrate _someone._"

To demonstrate, Ziva unsheathed the knife at her waist with great relish.

"I'm off, I'm off!" McGee yelped. Before she or her partner could even blink, McGee was off like a shot, brushing past Tony and running towards the closing elevator doors.

"We want coffees; you better get them right. And tread carefully when you come back, because you never know what's waiting for you around the corner!" Tony yelled after young, petrified field agent, and a whimper drifted back towards the partners' ears. Ziva dissolved into a fit of giggles, and Tony turned with a grin to meet her palm in mid-air. "That was _fun._"

"Yes, it was," Ziva agreed with a big smile.

Payback was always spectacular.

* * *

><p><strong>P.S. They don't <em>actually <em>have egg-yolk shaded walls, btw :P it's just something Tony said in a previous conversation...**


	9. Pet

**Okay, this is one of those chapters where, upon rereading it, I wonder what I was high on while writing it :P regardless, Kiera thought it sounded sane enough to be published, so I'm publishing it!**

**I hope you enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

><p><strong>Pet<strong>

"Hamsters!" he exclaimed enthusiastically as they were stepping through the doors. "Look at those hamsters! Let's get some hamsters!"

"Tony," Ziva laughed, wrapping her hand around his arm to pull him out of the way of a harried-looking cat owner and her scowling daughter, "we are here to look. That does not mean we are going to buy any pets and that _certainly _does not mean that we are going to buy any hamsters without looking at the rest of the animals in the store."

"But they're so cute!" Tony whined, and she shook her head.

"I know they are, but that is what you would call an 'impulse buy,' yes? What do you really know about rearing hamsters, hmm?"

"… Nothing." His shoulders slumped.

"Exactly." She patted him on the cheek. "Don't worry, my little hairy butt. We will look around and see if there is something perhaps a little more low-maintenance for you."

He sighed, but allowed her to take up his hand as she began to lead him towards the back of the store.

xoxo

"_Whoa, _no lizards!"

Ziva watched in amusement as her partner inched backwards, his wary eyes never leaving the pet store's surprisingly large collection of reptiles. "Why not?" she asked, even though she was sure she already knew the answer. "They are very … pettable, yes?"

He spluttered in indignation. "'_Pettable'_? Those things have scales! Like, lots of scales!"

"Lizards should have scales. It is only natural," she deadpanned.

Tony shut his eyes and clasped his hands together. "Look, I know Kate told McGee and McGee told you about the 'Tony and the iguana' story, okay? McGee was never very good at lying. So, I know you _know _that I would rather not wake up and come face-to-face with an iguana sitting _on your pillow. _Pleaaase, Ziva? No iguanas."

"How about a baby gecko?" she teased, smirking.

"No lizards."

She pretended to consider it until Tony's expression grew positively terrified. "Fine," she gave in with a shrug then, and his relief was palpable. "No lizards."

"Thanks."

"Though, you know, my sister and I had an iguana when we were littler," she told him as they walked past the terrariums.

"You did?" he asked, taken aback.

"Oh, yes. Our _abba _and _ima _bought him for us…"

xoxo

"Puppies?"

"No."

"No?" he pleaded.

"You find them less troublesome than hamsters?" she asked rhetorically, and he fell silent. "Besides, I thought you have the same issues with dogs as you do with lizards."

"That's different. You can have a cute dog; you can't have a cute iguana."

"I beg to differ." She whirled to face him and pressed a hand to his chest. "Okay. What is it with you today? Or these few weeks, rather. You suddenly seem … very set on having a pet."

"I like pets."

"Tony, you _hate _pets. You find them noisy and messy and—"

"Okay, okay!" He frowned before opening his mouth and then promptly shutting it again. "Uhm. You know what? Never mind the pets. Let's just get out of here."

"Tony." She laid a gentle hand on his cheek, stilling his movements. "You can tell me."

"It's—It's just…" He hesitated, his eyes flickering all over the place. "You know, when I was living alone, a pet just … wasn't worth the hassle. I want a pet. I've wanted one since my mother drank all my sea monkeys. But I'm … Tony DiNozzo, and Tony DiNozzo doesn't do pets. I mean, geez, can you imagine me just sitting in my bachelor pad alone and cooing at a pet rabbit or something? Or bringing some chick home from the bar only to find that there's, like, a _poodle _waiting for me by the front door. _Totally _emasculating." She chuckled, and his eyes settled for fixating on the floor. "But—but I'm not just Tony DiNozzo anymore."

She paused, momentarily confused before she caught on with what he was trying to tell her without actually telling her. And when she did, her heart softened impossibly. "You think we do pets, Tony?"

He laughed, flustered. "Well, I guess it's mostly just me. Um, on second thought, this was just one of my stupider ide—"

She cut him off with a soft kiss to the lips. In the middle of the canine aisle of a pet store. In full view of the public for the first time in their relationship. It was somewhat quick and relatively chaste in comparison to most of the kisses that they had shared before, but she still felt her heart racing as she pulled away.

"Okay," she told him, brushing her fingertips across his mouth, and he smiled a little dazedly.

"'Okay'?" he repeated dreamily.

"We do pets." He opened his mouth to cut in, but she held up a finger. "No dogs, because I imagine that after the novelty wears off, I will be the one whose duty it is to clean up after the puppy."

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Fair enough."

"Good."

He waited for a beat, and then asked in surprise, "That's all?"

She smiled. "Yes."

"Wow, you're lax."

She chortled. "It is not my intention to … curtail your wishes, Tony."

His face fell. "Ziva, you know I don't wanna put anything in the house that you don't want there."

"I know," she answered softly, reaching forward to entwine her fingers with his. "And to be honest, I don't really care whether we get a pet. But I can see that you want this, and I can see it … being our _thing. _We can put it in the living room and share joint custody of it, hmm?"

"Are you sure about this?"

"As sure about it as I was about moving in with you."

His eyes grew a little misty at that, and he cleared his throat self-consciously. "Thanks."

She rubbed her thumb across his skin and tugged on his hand. "Come on. We haven't looked at the fish yet."

xoxo

"Um … we could get fish," he offered, and she frowned at the indifference in his voice.

"You do not seem to like fish much."

"Well … it's not my favourite pet," he admitted reluctantly.

"Then why do you want fish?"

"It's … low-maintenance?"

She hissed. "Tony—"

He gave in. "I know, I know, your only condition was about dogs."

"Good, you remembered," she huffed. "And by the way, have you even talked to the landlord about what kind of pet we're allowed to have?"

"Nothing dangerous, nothing illegal. Anything else goes."

She snorted and lowered her voice, "Why did I somehow expect that?"

"Because we have seen better-managed apartment buildings," he answered without skipping a beat. "But at least we're allowed to have whatever pet we want to have."

"Only if it's not dangerous or illegal," she reminded him, making him laugh.

xoxo

"How about a guinea pig?" she proposed as they completed their circle around the store.

"Really?" he asked, eyeing the rodent cages eagerly. "I like guinea pigs."

"So do I. More than hamsters, actually."

"But guinea pigs are messy too, with the cage-cleaning and all."

"Yes, but at least I will not have to clean their faeces out of the carpeting."

"Well, there's that." Tony bent down, looking closely into the cage of a particularly adorable-looking critter. "Y'know, I don't know anything about rearing guinea pigs either, Ziva."

She rubbed a hand across his back. "That is okay. We will learn, yes?"

He glanced over his shoulder, an unidentifiable emotion swirling in his eyes. "Look, I really have to ask this again—are you sure about this, Ziva?"

So, she bent down beside him, watching as the guinea pig in the cage shuffled towards them and squeaked. "I think this is the one," she told him by way of an answer, smiling at the furry light brown creature. "The tag says she is a girl. What are you going to name her?"

He thought about that for a long time. "Felicity," he finally announced proudly, a beam growing on his face. "Lissie on good days."

And so, Lissie it was.


	10. Kids

**Okay, this chapter is looong, firstly. Secondly, the starting point for it might be a little silly, but I'm actually a big fan of the whole chapter, so I hope you are, too. Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

><p><strong>Kids<strong>

Barely two days after taking her home from the pet store, Lissie had lost her appetite.

Tony was the first to notice the change in the guinea pig's eating patterns, and he and Ziva had taken Lissie to the veterinarian's; they'd emerged with a diagnosis of pneumonia and a prescription for a round of antibiotics. For the next few days, Tony had tended diligently to the guinea pig, making sure that it ate and was administered medication and had clean bedding.

Now a week and a half later, Lissie was back to being fine and dandy. It surprised Ziva, then, when Tony suddenly slipped out of the bedroom one night and into the living room. She heard the distant squeaks of the guinea pig as Tony assumedly came into view of the cage; when Lissie quietened, Ziva climbed out of bed and walked down the hallway, prepared to check on her boyfriend and their guinea pig. What she heard stopped her in her tracks.

"Hey, Lissie-girl."

Tony was whispering to the guinea pig, the tone of his voice soft and gentle and, unexpectedly, upset.

"Gotta be quiet—don't wanna wake Ziva up," Ziva heard him continue as she backed up silently. Tony had spoken to Lissie in practically all manners possible by now, but never in so sad a tone. "I doubt she hasn't already heard you, but anyway … just come to check on you. And maybe tell you a bit of stuff. _Hah, _confessing my troubles to a guinea pig. Zi would never let that go."

Ziva frowned, but Tony never missed a beat. "We talked about kids once, y'know," her partner whispered, his voice dropping an octave lower, and her heart missed a beat. "Ziva and I. It was just some fantasy; some stupid thing where we were imagining the ideal world and what our life would be like in it. But, I mean, this is the real world and you don't just go around telling your partner of _ten _months that you want to have babies with her, and … it's all stupid, but I want her and two-point-five kids so badly."

The Israeli-American stood frozen in place, her mouth dry and her heart racing. She remembered that conversation. It'd taken place sometime in the middle of searching for an apartment that they could both live in, when he'd jokingly suggested that they get one with enough space for 'Tivlets' and she'd less-jokingly told him that he would be risking castration if he dared term their hypothetical children that again.

In the end, she'd managed to convince him to get a smaller apartment. They hadn't been overwhelmingly happy with the somewhat rundown place they had found, but the one-bed, one-bath had been enough for him and herself, and it would allow them to save up in the event that they _did _have a family together.

Later, she'd written everything off as something which could be discussed much further into the future. She just hadn't known until that very instant how much more set Tony was about the matter.

"But that doesn't mean I don't adore you, okay?" Tony's words cut through her thoughts abruptly, and she noted by his brisk tone that he was probably ending his confession to the guinea pig prematurely. "You're cute and furry, and no one would ever neglect you for a kid. So, don't get jealous. And now I'm gonna put you back in the cage and we're gonna pretend this conversation never happened."

Ziva craned her neck forward, straining to see what her partner was really doing. From her vantage point, she could see Lissie being put back into the cage; the latch was pulled to, and a heavy sigh was heard.

In the pin-drop silence that followed, Ziva crept down the hallway and found Tony slumped into a half-lying position on the couch.

"You should really go back to bed; I thought we were gonna pretend this conversation never happened," Tony spoke up, and she twitched with the guilt of knowing that she'd been caught red-handed in the middle of spying on him.

Taking a deep breath and, hoping that her voice was calmer than her thoughts were, she answered, "You tell me _this _and you expect me to go back to bed?"

"I was telling Lissie. You were listening in."

She bit her lip. "Did Lissie give you the answers you needed?"

"No, but she knows I just needed someone to listen."

"You do not think I would have listened?" Ziva questioned and, judging by Tony's sigh, she'd probably sounded quite hurt.

"Not now." He shook his head but never turned back to look at her. "Not in the middle of the night on some random, non-significant day, seven months after moving in together and two weeks after getting a _pet _together. We may be a lot of things, but impulsive about commitment—especially to each other—is not one of them."

"So, when did you decide that you wanted to be _committed … _to me?"

There was a long pause before he replied, and when he did, he sounded so defeated that her heart broke. "There was always some vague wish, but I guess there was just this one day three months ago, when we were making dinner in the kitchen together, and—"

"Why now? Why tell the _guinea pig_ now?"

"I have no idea." He was quiet for a moment. "Maybe I just needed to get it out there."

She ran a hand through her hair and sought for the courage to finally move over to him, nudging his legs to get him to make space as she sat down on the edge of the couch. He did as she wanted him to, but his jaw was tight and his eyes were hard, and she thought that she probably looked the same way.

"You should have told me," she chided eventually, her eyes not quite meeting his.

He snorted humourlessly. "That's a good idea. Arguing about _paint _over breakfast one day and going, 'Hey, Ziva, how 'bout you be my wife and we populate this Earth together?' the next. I can see that conversation going so well."

"You do not get to decide how I react to things."

"I didn't. I just decided I didn't wanna find out. Not then. Not now."

"So, when were you planning for us to have this conversation?" She glared at him. "When we were both old and grey?"

"I don't know. When you're ready."

"How do you know I'm not ready right now?"

"_Are _you?" he asked incredulously.

And Ziva fell silent. "No," she admitted, and he huffed.

"Look, it's not a big deal, okay? It's just, Lissie being sick and all, brought up some unwanted thoughts. I mean, _two days, _I'd had her, and she'd contracted _pneumonia. _How do I even do this?"

"It was most likely something she got from the pet store."

"It doesn't matter. I took it as some sort of cosmic sign. If Lissie died, then I wasn't meant to be a dad."

"How are those two things even related?" Ziva asked in frustration.

"They're not."

"But?"

"Oh c'mon, Ziva, it's me. Tony DiNozzo, Jr., doomed to failure from the start. Kicked out of boarding school, blew his knee on a _sports scholarship_ in college, left by his _fiancée _on the night before the wedding. Failed pet owner would've made a nice addition to the list, and let's not forget that I'd already let my mother drink my sea monkeys. Would you really want _me _to be the father of your children?"

"Yes!" she barked, and his eyes snapped up to hers. She shifted forward when she noticed the tiniest bit of moisture lingering in his lashes and pressed a rather hard kiss to his lips. "I may not be ready now, but you are _so stupid, _Tony. Do you think I would be saving up with you if I did not think marriage and children would be in our plans somewhere?"

"Well, we can't wait years. I hate to break it to you, but I don't think my swimmers are gonna live forever."

"So, you are rushing this because you think you are getting older? Have you never heard of adoption or any other option that would be available to us?"

"I'm _not _rushing this. _That's the point, Ziva. _That is why I didn't wanna tell you in the first place. There was supposed to be no pressure on you."

She rubbed her temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache setting in. "And then, what? What would happen if we decided that we were ready and then found out that we couldn't have children?"

"I never thought that far." He cleared his throat, suddenly becoming very interesting in the couch cushions. "I was just thinking, y'know … I'd spent God knows how many years not telling you how I felt, and it'd suck pretty bad if I blew my chances because of that. Before we got together—… I mean, do you even know what kind of creep I am, Ziva?"

"Why? Because you might have imagined family before I asked you on a first date?"

When Tony blinked rapidly and averted his eyes, Ziva knew she'd hit the nail on the head. "Did you not think," she inquired urgently, "that maybe I wanted a man with whom I could have a family, too?"

"Yeah. But I'm willing to bet that your hopes and dreams were a lot less specific than mine."

"Perhaps," she conceded, "but not anymore. Not for a long time."

"Tell me something." He took a deep breath. "If Lissie had died, would you have dared to raise a kid with a man like me?"

"Yes. Because I acknowledge that pets have _nothing _to do with children. Not unless you are planning to retrieve our child from a pet store, too."

That made him chuckle, albeit with a sniffle.

"I don't understand," she pushed, more gently now. "Lissie is alive and well. Why are you so sad, still?"

"I'm not sad. Just … pensive, I guess. I mean, Lissie surviving gave me hope, and it's just … it's not that I think about it all the time. I'm happy where we are, I swear. But sometimes I see this kid on the street that looked like he could be ours, or this stupid tiny little Ninja costume that our daughter would adore, and I keep telling myself, 'You gotta wait. Just gotta wait.' But I waited years to tell you … what I shoulda told you a long time ago, and I don't know how many more years I'm gonna need to tell you what I want … _with _you."

"So you decided to tell me via guinea pig," she concluded, and he shrugged.

"To be honest, I thought you'd just go back into the bedroom and pretend to be asleep. I wasn't even sure you were standing there until you made yourself known. I … don't even know whether I hoped you were standing there."

She reached out to run her hand across his cheek, and his eyelids fluttered shut under her touch. "You need to learn to speak up for yourself, Tony."

"That never worked for me."

"Except when you asked me for a chance at _us._ And when you asked me if we could make this long-term. And when you wanted us to move in together. And when you told me you loved me."

"Those are different—those don't involve you changing the rest of your life for me. Besides, you just proved that I do speak up for myself."

"Not enough. This is a tremendous weight to have been carrying around alone for such a long time."

He pursed his lips, apparently having run out of retorts. She scooped up his hand wrapped both of hers around it, cradling it in her lap and hoping that he was open to hearing what she had to say.

"Listen. If you or anyone else were to tell me this instant that I was pregnant, I would be far from ready—you are right about that. But you are wrong in thinking that that means I would not talk about it with you. Standing there in the hallway, I did … get terribly scared, honestly, at the thought of becoming a wife and mother right in that minute. But you are one half of this relationship, and you are perfectly entitled to expressing your needs. It is not wrong to hope for something you want, Tony. It is not wrong to talk about something you hope for, _especially _when it comes to us. Our relationship might be new, but how we feel is not, and I would never think that whatever you wanted was too soon or too strange or too … whatever you think they are in your head.

"And to have a child does mean the rest of our lives would change—yes, Tony, the thought does frighten me. Up until very recently, I was used to a very single, nomadic lifestyle, and I simply … had not spent a lot of time picturing myself putting everything aside to attend to my child. You have had … a _much _longer time than I have had to adjust to the idea of actually being a spouse and a parent. But, so what? You should have known that I would have taken that, taken _you_ into consideration before we entered this discussion."

"I didn't want my age to force you into becoming a mother before you were prepared to be one."

"So, you thought you would let my uncertainties keep you from being the father you so badly wanted to be instead?" she challenged, and he frowned. "Tony, I am not a woman you can easily force into doing anything. I am sure you are aware of that. Knowing how you felt would just have meant that I understood I had to get used to the idea a little quicker than otherwise. Knowing how you felt would have meant that I wouldn't drag my feet waiting for a _perfect _time when every doubt I had would magically vanish; I would just wait for the time when I could see myself as a mother and trust you to catch me if I ever got scared."

"I don't even know if I can catch myself," he protested, and Ziva heard the unspoken _let alone you _which undoubtedly lingered at the end of his sentence.

"We will catch each other," she answered firmly, and his shoulders slumped. "What were you going to do, make sure that you could provide me with every single thing on Earth before you made me your wife and the mother of your children? I am not a princess. I do not need you to be a fairy-tale prince for me. I need you to be _you—_this very human, very remarkable man who struggles sometimes, yes, but who dares to share that part of himself with me because he knows that I love him deeply for it. That baby you so wish for would be _our _baby, Tony. _Our _shared everything. Which meant that if you ever had questions about them, like … when we could try for them, we would find out the answer together. Okay?"

She didn't miss the tremble that passed through his taut jaw. "Okay."

A tear slipped escaped the corner of his eye when she rubbed his cheek again. "Okay," she murmured once more just for emphasis, and she reaffirmed her promise by kissing him a second time. Softly, lightly. "Now, let's go to bed. We have work tomorrow, Tony. But, after work, we will stay home and order in, and … you will tell me a little more about those tiny little Ninja costumes, yes?"

"Yeah." He laughed weakly before tugging her into his arms and burying his face into her hair. His voice thick with unshed tears, he told her, "I love you so much, Zi."

So, she smiled and sank into his embrace. "I love you, too."

* * *

><p><strong>Before you ask: No, no surprise babies showed up from this night :P and we also won't see their conversation "tomorrow," because sometimes serious is just boring.<strong>

**I'm thinking that there are two more chapters to this fic, but I'm not very sure yet. It all depends on how things go!**

****I hope you enjoyed; please review and thanks for reading!****

**-_Soph_**

**P.S. If you're as OCD as me, then you'll be happy to know that Tony _did _wash his hands of guinea pig before he went back to bed.**


	11. Anniversary (Part 1)

**Alright, this is the second to last chapter and the first of a two-parter. It's long, really long; but the second chapter is a lot shorter, so I guess it sort of balances out.**

**This chapter is dedicated to M E Wofford because she once, very long ago (sorry D:), asked to see what Tony and Ziva's first date was like. So, I hope this makes up for it.**

**Enjoy, everyone! Please review!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

><p><strong>Anniversary (Part 1)<strong>

"Tony, come zip me!" Ziva pounded on the bathroom door, eliciting a yelp from the man on the other side.

"Performance pressure much, Ziva?" Tony griped. "Go away; I'll zip you later!"

"I am _not _walking around with my dress half-open."

"Why don't you come in here, then? The door's unlocked."

"But you're—… never mind." She scowled and waited impatiently for Tony to finish 'doing his business.' The toilet flushed and the door swung open seconds after that; Ziva regarded his hands suspiciously until he clucked in annoyance.

"_Yes, _I washed them. Turn."

She did, and he carefully zipped up her dark green dress, his hands grazing her back as he did so. "Well, this looks nice on you. And why couldn't you have zipped yourself?"

She smirked and twirled around to clasp her hands behind his neck, standing on tiptoe as she pressed her lips lightly to his. "Thank you. And maybe I wanted the opportunity to seduce you."

His whole face seemed to light up when he smiled. His hands stroking her waist on either side, he answered, "_Honey,_ it's our first anniversary together. I don't think you're gonna need to seduce me any to get me where you want me."

She chuckled. "It wouldn't hurt to do it, anyway." And so, she pulled herself from his grasp and turned away from him, bending down very deliberately to retrieve the high-heeled shoes she had tossed to the floor by her bare feet. On went one shoe, and then the other, and she took her sweet time fastening the delicate gold buckles.

"You're doing this to me on purpose," he complained, and she laughed loudly.

"Of course I am. You might want to get dressed, or we will be late for our dinner reservations."

Whining melodramatically, her partner went to do as he was told.

xoxo

_For someone who'd spent the better half of six years blatantly flirting with the man whom she was not technically supposed to have anything more than a close friendship and work partnership with, the former Israeli Mossad officer felt surprisingly self-conscious as she watched the minute-hand on her kitchen clock tick all too rapidly towards the hour._

_Right on the dot, her doorbell rang, and Ziva paused for a moment to contemplate—with commonly Tony-induced amusement—the fact that the senior field agent's timekeeping abilities drastically improved when he was aiming to impress._

_When she opened the door, she came face to face with a small bouquet of fresh red roses. Tony's green eyes peered hopefully out from behind them, and she suppressed a laugh as she accepted the bouquet from him._

"_They're nice, right?" Tony supplied. "Right. I don't even know why I'm asking you this. Uh, you ready to go?"_

"_I want to put these in water first, Tony." She pushed the door open wider and, for familiarity's sake, said, "Come in."_

_He followed her into her kitchen, and she could feel his eyes on her body as she searched her cabinets for a container large enough to hold the entire bouquet. Just as she was contemplating a sugar canister, he sighed glumly._

"_I should have thought this over," he said._

_She froze, hoping to _God _that he didn't mean he was second-guessing his decision to take her on a date. "Thought what over?" she asked him, her voice shaky._

"_The roses," he replied, upset and quite obviously without an idea as to where her thoughts lay. "Shoulda brought, like, a giant plastic container for them or something. Or y'know, a _vase, _since that's what flowers are supposed to be put in."_

_She sucked in a deep breath and laid down the roses gently before turning to him with a relieved smile. "It is okay," she assured him, wrapping her hands around his arms and drawing him to her. "I will just … I will find somewhere to put them when I get home. I promise."_

"_Okay. Maybe in the sink," he suggested, his eyes still fixed on the traitorous bouquet behind her. "You could put the stopper in and fill it with water—"_

"_And the roses will just float around in it," she finished with a chuckle. "Come on. We are going now, because you are obsessing way too much over such an insignificant detail."_

"_Right, because you're not as nervous as I am," he retorted. She frowned and pinched him lightly, and he squeaked and then glared at her. "David!"_

"_DiNozzo, can we just go?"_

"_Okay, fine! Let me help you into your coat!"_

_For some reason, that made her start to laugh._

_Perhaps it _was _her nerves. Or perhaps it was his expression, or the contradiction between his words and the tone of his voice. Somehow, though, she doubted that she would've accepted being spoken to like that on a first date with any other man, and the knowledge made her stomach flutter with excitement that made the whole situation funnier. Soon, he was laughing alongside her—and just like that, they rediscovered their element. They were _Tony and Ziva: _They were comfortable around each other, and that was all there was to it._

_So, she let him wrap an arm around her waist and kiss her cheek, and she smiled at him and even let him lead her to the door._

_It was their first date, after all, and it was already spectacular._

xoxo

Ziva grumbled when Tony almost knocked her clean over in his haste to open the car door for her.

He stood there with a half a pout, hand on the opened car door, until she was done _tsk-_ing about being able to let herself into a car. Then he said, "Won't you please let me be romantic, for once?"

She huffed. "You call _that _romantic? We need to come up with new ideas of romance for you."

"I wanted to be sweet!"

"I know you did. But really, Tony, I know how to open a car door by myself."

He visibly deflated. "I … well, okay." His eyes didn't meet hers when he made to move away, and she stopped him with a light hand on his chest. Carefully neutral green eyes greeted her, so she made it a point to drop her hand and entwine her fingers with his.

"Tony, you are the _sweetest _man I know. Aside from McGee, but McGee is just …_McGee. _And you—you are Tony DiNozzo, and I know even without your doing these things how much you love me."

"Then let me do them." He looked at her beseechingly. "Please,Zi. I mean, I just like doing some stupid old-fashioned 'gentleman' thing once in a while. You're pretty much gonna get me on the couch belching up beer and dropping pizza down my shirt every other day, anyway, so why not just … enjoy this while it lasts?"

She wrinkled her nose at the (actually very un-Tony) imagery, but laughed softly and nodded. "Okay. One condition."

"What?" he asked warily.

"I get to be on top tonight."

He grinned. "Deal. Now, m'lady, your carriage awaits."

xoxo

_The restaurant was a cosy little place tucked into a part of DC that she rarely found reason to visit. The small establishment was elegant but not pretentious, and Ziva really liked its understated atmosphere. At Tony's eager recommendations, she chose salmon; once their orders had been taken, she stared across the table at Tony and began to feel once again ill at ease._

_It was odd, she mused. Working undercover as assassins, they had been bold, shameless, and most definitely self-assured as a couple; yet, now—with absolutely no eyes and ears on them —they could only act like awkward teenagers. Proof that they were good investigators, she decided. _And horribly bad at romance.

"_We have never … done this sort of thing before," she muttered apologetically, as if he would somehow be unaware of that fact._

_And sure enough, he chuckled and agreed, "Yeah."_

"_Have you been here often?" she tried again._

"_Um … not _often._ Once or twice." He winced and hesitated._ _"I didn't wanna take you to a place I wasn't familiar with."_

"_Oh, okay." _Once or twice _was undoubtedly followed by an unspoken _on other dates, _since this was not the kind of place one dined in with the intention of being alone, and she was hard-pressed to come up with an appropriate response to that._

_Tony, though, must have read her quietness as discomfort of some sort, because he wiggled anxiously and said, "We can go somewhere else, if you like."_

_She smiled and shook her head. "It's fine, Tony. Besides, we've already ordered."_

"_Are you sure? 'Cause—"_

"_Toh-nee," she murmured, and he shut his mouth. "If we were to pick a restaurant you that hadn't brought another woman to, we would have to travel to as near as Missouri."_

"_Hey!" he protested, the corners of his lips twitching even as he turned bright red. "I haven't dated _that _many women."_

"_No?" She grinned. "Well, I believe you."_

"_Really?" he asked sceptically. "'Cause you looked pretty sure about the Missouri thing."_

"_Maybe I just wanted to visit Missouri with you," she challenged. "Did you think of that?"_

_He snorted. "Yeah. You, me, on a road trip? Impossible. We'd kill each other before we left DC."_

xoxo

The memory of their twenty-minute argument about whether they could successfully get through a shared road trip made Ziva burst out into laughter in the middle of dinner, and Tony watched on in what appeared to be perplexity as she choked on her wine. She tried to gag in as dignified a manner as she could as she clung for dear life onto the stem of her wine glass, trying to compose herself.

"Can you believe how awkward we were a year ago?" she finally managed to ask.

"Oh, yeah." He pondered that. "I mean, we'd known each other for like, what, six years?"

"Yes. And yet the most un-awkward conversation we had was about whether RVs or one of your vintage cars would work best for a trip across the U.S."

"I still vote vintage cars."

"Tony, it is not practical! You have everything in RVs—"

"Except the convenience of a parking space."

"Well, there are RVs camps—"

"Ziva, you travel _in style! _An RV doesn't say 'style'; it says 'I'm taking my family on a trip—'"

"I thought you _wanted _a family that you could take on a trip," she shot back triumphantly, and he froze with his mouth open mid-argument.

"Well…" He scowled. "I guess you win this one."

Smirking, she went back to her dinner.

"'Road trip across the United States with the family,'" he recited somewhat dreamily. "Huh."

So, she reached across the table to squeeze his hand. "Someday," she promised, and she thought she had never seen him smile more shyly.

xoxo

"_Hey, you wanna take a walk after dinner?"_

_Her heart skipped a beat at his invitation, and she glanced up to see him poking listlessly at his dessert with his small fork, as if his mind were occupied elsewhere. "Sure."_

"_Any place in particular you wanna go?"_

"_No." She paused for a second. "Although I am sure that a walk along the Potomac would be nice."_

"_Okay."_

_Even though he merely gave a single nod and changed the subject after that, she couldn't help but to feel as if she'd fulfilled a very big wish of his._

_And later, when he expressed to her the want to commit to a long-term relationship with her, she couldn't help but to feel as if the wish had been hers._

xoxo

"I can't believe it's been a year."

"Mmhmm," she agreed, slipping an arm around his waist as they walked down the pathway. It was a quiet night, and she was comfortable with the simple display of affection because there was almost no one around. "It has been a good year."

"Yeah?"

"Oh, yes. I have been _very _happy."

He stopped walking all of a sudden, and she was unexpectedly jerked backwards by the motion; looking up at her partner, she noted that Tony was slightly teary-eyed.

"What's the matter?" she asked in alarm.

He blushed pink, and his hand came up to cover his face. "Nothing." His answer was somewhat muffled. "You won't mention this to McGee."

"I wouldn't know what to mention to McGee," she replied in puzzlement.

"That I got all … _emotional. _For a second." He waved his free hand around frantically. "Ziva, I love you."

She had to bury her face into his suit to stifle her giggles. Not trusting herself to be able to keep a straight face if she tried to deal with his sudden onslaught of adoration for her, she stayed there until he breathed in and dropped the hand that had been covering his eyes to the small of her back instead.

"I'm fine now," he told her, and his voice was an octave lower when he cleared his throat.

"Good." She raised herself onto tiptoes again to kiss him. "I think it is about time we went home, _tesoro._"

xoxo

He toed off his shoes once they were in their apartment, closing the front door and then making it a point to stretch in an exaggerated manner as she pulled her high heels off her aching feet. His arms sneaked around her waist just as she threw the 'torture devices' into a corner; she straightened up only to find herself with her back pressed flush against his front.

"Eager, are you?" she teased, and he nuzzled her cheek.

"Mmhmm."

"Well, you're going to have to wait,'' she answered bluntly, and he made a noise of protest. "I have to pee, Tony. Why don't you go get that bottle of white wine out of the fridge instead?"

"We've already _had _wine," he pointed out.

"I know, but I think tonight calls for _much more celebration._"

He heaved a long-suffering sigh and let her go. "Fine. I'll be back."

He lumbered into the kitchen, and she padded towards the bathroom and slipped behind the door. Listening intently, she heard the refrigerator door opening, and then closing, and then—at last—the sound she had been searching for.

Complete silence, as he found what she had planned for them all along.


	12. Anniversary (Part 2)

**Okay, so it ended up not _as _short (post-editing, and editing, and editing again until I've gone crazy) as I thought it'd be. But I'm sure that's not a bad thing, right? :P**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

><p><strong>Anniversary (Part 2)<strong>

For two people who dedicated their life to drama and overly complicated love stories, Tony and Ziva's first date had ended rather unremarkably.

They'd started off somewhere between _maybe this will work _and _maybe this won't work _but secured themselves a successful first date and an 'official' romantic relationship to boot not three hours later; still, the night had not ended in fireworks brought on by either a shy peck to the lips or a round of really hot monkey sex like Ziva had been expecting. Instead, her boyfriend had driven her back to her apartment and she'd invited him in for a late-night movie. It had been exactly like while they were just friends, except that she had snuggled brazenly into his side and he had unfailingly held her close to him—and yes, they had stepped out of their usually closed-off shells to exchange a lot of exhilaration-fuelled kisses.

At the end of the day, it has just been _comfortable_—albeit in an all-of-this-is-novel way—and that was what had made it the best moment out of the whole date.

Memories of this very first date flashed through her mind's eye as Ziva waited—whilst holding onto the door like it was her lifeline—the requisite five seconds in the bathroom for Tony's thoughts to catch up with his shock. Apart from Lissie's intermittent squeaks, the whole apartment was deathly quiet. Finally, Ziva pushed open the door and started the long, almost-unending trek into the kitchen. Tony swung around to look at her as she entered, and his eyes were large and conflicted (definitely not what she was hoping for); his mouth, slightly parted.

He huffed a couple of times, breathlessly and probably at a loss for words, before gasping, "You didn't really need to pee, did you?"

She bit her lip and shook her head, feeling her heart pound in her chest. "No. I was waiting for you to discover that." She waved her hand towards the opened box that he kept in a death grip.

"I didn't put that … in the fridge," he told her unnecessarily, apparently not yet over his shock.

She gulped. "I did."

"You…" he murmured, and his thumb appeared to stroke the tiny square of cream paper she had painstakingly written on and attached to the inside of the box lid. "You're asking me to _marry _you."

"Yes." When he didn't reply immediately, she shifted on her feet. "I mean, I know we didn't really talk about marriage in that much detail, but you had expressed a wish, and I thought…"

And that was when he lifted out the plain white-gold band and very decisively snapped the velvet box shut. She watched as he unceremoniously stuffed the box into his coat pocket and attempted to put on the ring; after several unfruitful tries to get it past the middle joint of his finger, she found the voice she needed to say, "It's been in the fridge, Tony. I don't think it is going to fit right now. But it will."

"Oh." He stared dumbly at the ring, as if pondering what to do with it, before simply removing it and closing his hand around it and asking, "You're … going to let me buy you an engagement ring, too, right?"

She relaxed and chuckled, moving forward and putting her arms around his waist. "Is that a 'yes'?" she asked softly, and the corners of his eyes crinkled upwards.

"It is a 'yes,'" he confirmed, kissing her. "But … I want to get you a ring too, Ziva. A ring with a big rock on it."

"I would expect that."

His eyes darted around nervously. "You want a ring, right?"

"I do," she assured him, knowing that he would never be able to live with being the only one of them to wear an engagement ring. "I do. I don't _need _one, but I would like one."

And she would.

"Good." His smile was relieved. But before she could say anything in return, his brows drew together. "I have a question, though."

She studied him warily. "Go ahead."

"Is this because of what I said to Lissie two months ago? About wanting you and kids with you."

"_Ohhh._" She ran her fingers through his hair, and he closed his eyes as her fingertips grazed his scalp. She understood his reticence now. "You are worried that I rushed to make a decision."

"Kinda, yeah." His shoulders dropped the tiniest bit.

"Well, I did not." He opened his eyes, and she elaborated, "I do not put too much thought into wedding proposals. So, yes, if you had not said anything, I would probably just have waited for you to ask me. But … you did tell me where you stood. And I do know where I stand. So, I asked you."

"Yeah, but," he hesitated. "Are you sure you _really _want to marry me?"

"I was sure it would be _us _even before that night, Tony. At least, for me. And … and admittedly, I was scared then to picture myself as a wife rather than a girlfriend, but now I have realized that I want that. Like it or not, I want to be stuck with you forever."

"The proverbial ball and chain, huh?" he joked, and she dug a thumb into his flesh.

"Yes. But don't you _ever _dare call me that."

"I would never." His eyes glistened a bit. "Why now?"

_Why now?_

She knew he was asking her why she was choosing to propose now, and it reminded her of a lonely night two months ago, when she'd asked him the very same question because she couldn't figure out how his general wish for a family had turned into yearning so great that he couldn't keep it all a secret anymore.

He hadn't had an answer for her, and she was sure that he still didn't really know, either. But _she _knew. A moment of shock and a night of revelations and a week of realizations had turned into two months of introspection, and she knew why she was standing there on that particular evening, having that particular conversation with that particular man.

So, she took a deep breath and said, "Because I am ready. And I know that you are afraid I might not be ready, but I am not going to let that stop us when we know what we want. So, I am telling you. I am taking the initiative to tell you that I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"I can't believe this," he blurted out, and she frowned. He noticed her reaction and hastened to explain, "No, no, I'm not doubting you at all. It's just … I'm just the goddamn luckiest man to walk this Earth."

She laughed and rubbed the tip of her nose against his. "You are overly sappy, DiNozzo."

"I don't _care,_" he answered defiantly, and the proof was in the slightest hint of lingering moisture on his eyelashes. "You just told me you want to marry me, David."

"I did," she affirmed. "And I mean it. So, Anthony DiNozzo, Jr., will you marry me?"

And he brought his hand up in between them, the band on his ring finger already catching the light as he cupped her cheek to pull her in for a kiss.

"Yes I will, Ziva David."

* * *

><p><strong>Bam. Longest Tiva wedding proposal ever. But I hope you enjoyed it.<strong>

**And now we're done! Thank you for reading, everyone! Thank you for all the alerts put out and the favourites and the reviews!**

**Here: Have some random virtual chocolate as a thank-you gift. See you guys in the next story!**

**-_Soph_**


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